Adela claims that its technology can differentiate the most highly informative (methylated) regions of the genome from non-informative regions
Adela’s blood-based platform detects cancer and other diseases. (Credit: PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay.)
Adela, previously DNAMx, has secured $60m in a Series A financing round led by F-Prime Capital to enable the detection of cancer and other diseases through a blood test that exploits the potential of DNA methylome.
OrbiMed, Deerfield Management, Decheng Capital, and RA Capital Management have also participated in the funding round.
Adela said that its genome-wide methylation enrichment technology will enhance the detection of various diseases with a single assay at scale, with superior performance.
Adela chief executive officer Scott Bratman said: “The immense potential of our core technology has been demonstrated across 10 different cancer types.
“As opposed to competing approaches reliant upon chemical or enzymatic treatment and narrower targeted measurement of methylated DNA, we profile all methylated DNA fragments in a vial of blood in an unbiased manner.
“This enables us to achieve robust cancer detection as well as tissue-of-origin classification from a single blood sample.”
Adela claimed that its methylation platform can differentiate the most highly informative (methylated) regions of the genome from non-informative regions.
Developed in collaboration with investigators at Sinai Health System, the platform will also preferentially target those informative regions for sequencing.
The company said that, unlike existing platforms which only tap into a subset of the methylome, its platform captures information from the entire methylome.
Also, the technology eliminates the need for bisulfite conversion, a chemical treatment that may potentially cause the loss of important genomic material.
Furthermore, the platform has been evaluated and externally validated by independent groups with peer-reviewed publications showing its clinical feasibility and reproducibility.
Adela founding member and board chair David Scheer said: “Adela’s technology has the potential to revolutionise how we detect and diagnose disease.
“We envision a future in which a single, accessible blood test will be part of routine care for early detection of many conditions, cancer, cardiovascular disease and autoimmune conditions, allowing for a complete transformation in how we currently detect disease.
“We believe that the potential global impact on reducing morbidity and mortality from such detectable diseases, by identifying and treating them earlier, is enormous.”